Thursday June 29, 2017

Back on board the Neptune to launch our second research campaign in the waters of the North Sea. There’s rough weather today, so the work we do on board is completely different: material checks, operations tests, meetings and “office work” take up most of our day. However, today I would like to talk about something that has made it possible for us to be here right now doing research in this sea: what goes in to preparing the campaign, not only at a purely scientific level but in terms of administration.

I was more involved in the preparation of the campaign for the first time and I was able to see firsthand the enormous amount of work that my colleagues in accounting and development have to do so that we can be here today in this sea doing our research.

Invoices to record, reports to make, meetings to attend. Hardly a day has gone by that my colleagues didn’t work well into the night, taking care of everything behind the scenes, work that doesn’t make it into the spotlight much but which is entirely necessary for our organization to fulfill its ultimate goal. It was hard, arduous work and likely one without a reward as great as for us who are here today, but most certainly an outstanding job.